


Take another drag, turn me to ashes

by harrietelizabeth



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 10:57:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4432883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrietelizabeth/pseuds/harrietelizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn can't cook for shit. Liam comes to the rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take another drag, turn me to ashes

**Author's Note:**

> A silly wee drabble based on a prompt by drakesideheaux on tumblr, and of course inspired by the ORIGINAL (?) and greatest fireman!Liam fic, These Inconvenient Fireworks. 
> 
> Come and say hi - heauxrystyles.tumblr.com (:

“Shit shit shit,” Zayn mutters, fanning black smoke out of his face as he grabs the pan off the stove and almost throws it into the sink, then yelps as he burns his hand in the process. His kitchen is filled with thick, black smoke so he can barely see, his smoke alarm is blaring incessantly, and his hand is searing where he just picked up the burning pot handle. 

Fantastic.

He’d only been trying to make pancakes for god’s sake, a placating gesture for Louis, who would now be the opposite of placated when he came home from the night shift to find their apartment half burned down. Zayn’s glad his mum can’t see him right now; she’d have a fit, tell him it serves him right for letting her do all the cooking when he still lived at home (not that she’d ever let him even step foot in the kitchen when she was cooking, saying she was better off without Zayn’s help). And, clearly, she was right. Even frying some egg and flour in a pan seems to be beyond Zayn’s culinary abilities. He should’ve just gone out and got some weed for Louis instead.

He can barely think with the smoke alarm going off in his ears (why don’t they have a setting for “it’s not actually an emergency I’m just a shit cook”?), but he knows he needs to get his burn under water – one thing he did learn from his mum, thankfully. He tries to ignore the alarm and holds his hand under the cold tap for a minute or so, racking his brain for a way to hide this mess from Louis. There’s literally a black mark in the middle of the stove, though, and he’s not sure Louis’ going to believe it was there when they moved in.

Then there’s another noise in his ears, a distant wailing, getting slowly and slowly closer, kind of like……sirens? Oh, no. No no no. The fire brigade cannot be here for a damn grease fire in his kitchen, can they? He didn’t even call them. This isn’t happening. Zayn shuts off the tap, inspects his hand – it’s pretty red, but nothing he can’t blame on slamming it in a door or something – and goes on the hunt to turn off the damn smoke alarm. As he’s in the middle of dragging a chair underneath the beeping culprit, though, he’s interrupted by a knock at the door. Um……no. Panicking, Zayn runs to the kitchen to open a window and fan some of the smoke out, then sprints back to the door, fixing his hair just in case it’s his cute neighbour, Harry, from down the hall. 

It’s not Harry. It’s the fucking fire brigade. It was probably Harry who called them in the first place, damn him, concerned about other people’s safety and building regulations and shit. Damn him. 

“Um, hi. We were alerted to a fire in this apartment. Is everything ok?”

Zayn is not sure how to answer that question, because the fireman under the beige uniform and hard hat has a pair of warm brown eyes, lips the colour of candyfloss and a jawline so sharp it could probably cut glass, peppered with soft stubble. Zayn wants to say everything’s fine, go away please. But with this guy breathing down at him, slightly flushed from running up the stairs and ready to put Zayn over his shoulder and whisk him away to safety, he’s pretty sure everything is not ok.

“It’s just – I was just cooking, it’s –“

The guy walks past Zayn into his apartment, heading straight for the kitchen. He surveys the damage, and Zayn follows him helplessly, wanting to explain that he’s not really a failure of a human being, it was just this one time, but the words seem to stick in his throat.

“You ok?” The fireman turns to him suddenly, holding Zayn in his gaze, and Zayn feels sort of trapped.

“Just – burnt my hand,” he says. Idiot. Why did he have to tell him that? Now the guy’s going to think he’s even more pathetic than he already does.

“Let’s have a look,” he says – Zayn wishes he knew his name, but it feels strange to ask – and takes Zayn’s hand with surprising gentleness, considering the size of his broad palms and fingers. Zayn gulps.

“You get it under water?” the guy asks, and Zayn nods. At least he got one thing right. “Good. It’ll be fine,” he says, and Zayn thinks he could’ve figured that out himself, thanks. The fireman still hasn’t let go of Zayn’s hand.

“I’m Liam, by the way,” he says, then lets go of Zayn’s hand as gently as he picked it up, and starts walking round the kitchen, inspecting the stove and the pan that Zayn had chucked in the sink.

“Zayn,” Zayn says feebly, feeling vaguely like he’s walked into some kind of porno set. A hot firefighter in his kitchen holding his hand? The horny side of Zayn’s imagination has got to be making this up.

“Well Zayn, looks like your kitchen’s gonna be out of action for a day or so. I’ll give you the name of a repair guy who can come and sort it out for you.” Zayn groans internally; he’s gonna have to fork out for that, and there’ll be no hiding it from Louis.

“You sure it’s that bad?” Zayn asks, and thinks he sees a small smile flit across Liam’s face. It’s like the sun coming out from behind the clouds all of a sudden.

“Na, you’ll just have to wipe this up,” he gestures to the black stuff, and Zayn breathes a sigh of relief. “I was just trying to get you to agree to go to dinner with me tonight.”

Zayn is too busy counting his lucky stars that he hasn’t completely ruined his kitchen for Liam’s words to sink in straight away. Then he registers what Liam’s just said, the fact that he, a tall, golden tower of muscle, has asked Zayn, a terrible cook and fire safety hazard, on a date. Definitely a porno. 

Liam looks almost nervous, standing in Zayn’s kitchen with his lips half twisted in anticipation, one hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. 

“Yeah you’re right, I think it’d be much safer if I didn’t try cooking for a while,” Zayn says, and just like that, Liam’s face breaks into a huge grin, so that it takes up almost his whole face. Zayn wants nothing more than to kiss him, but that should probably wait until after dinner. 

“I mean, people like you are good for business, but I wouldn’t want you to properly burn yourself next time,” Liam says, and Zayn laughs. “I’ll pick you up at seven?” Zayn nods, pulling at his lips with his fingers because he’s almost self-conscious of how hard he’s smiling.

“Cool, yeah. See you later,” he says, walking with Liam to the front door. He stays a few steps behind him to admire the broad swathe of his shoulders, and the fact that he’s a little bit pink at the back of his neck.

“If you get hungry in the meantime, just order takeout,” Liam says teasingly, and Zayn punches him lightly on the shoulder before he waves goodbye and shuts the door. He’s never been so happy to be a terrible cook in his life.


End file.
